Sarah's Diary
by dreamlabyrinth
Summary: Sarah writes her feelings and thoughts into her diary. Who else does?
1. Default Chapter

_Maybe the story had a moral. I learned that my actions have consequences. I learned that I need to think before I act. I learned to take responsibility. I learned many things. I have never been the same since.  
But despite all the things I learned, I seem to have lost so much more.  
I always was the dreamer. The kids in school thought I was silly. But I had my dreams, and I was safe there. And I could hope that one day my dreams would come true and I would take my chance. I would be the person I always wanted to be. Smart and brave. But when my chance came, there were two ways instead of one. Maybe I have taken the right one. By the measures of my world, I have. But then I have little in common with this world. For my own happiness, I chose the wrong way.  
Like in a Greek tragedy, no matter what I did it would be wrong.  
And I have never been the same since._

The young woman closed the diary and carefully put it in its hiding place underneath the mattress. She had always kept it hidden. Now that she lived on her own it didn't seem necessary anymore, but she couldn't help it. The years with her stepmother and her nosy brother had left deep marks.

She looked around in the room. It was scarcely furnished. The bed, a closet, a table, two chairs, two bookshelves. One held everything she needed for her studies. The other contained her novels and fairy stories. She should have gotten rid of those years ago, but she had never managed to take that step.

She was tired. She had been ill that past week and still felt weak. Something that usually led her to depressions and self-pity. All her energy was gone. Probably she should go to the library and do some research for her paper. The fresh air on the way would do her good. Probably she should do some shopping, she really needed to stock up on food. Probably she should take a shower. Probably she should do anything, no matter what it was. But the idea of getting out of bed was appaling. She got her diary out again and browsed through the pages. She didn't write regularly. This one book had lasted her for years already. She remembered every entry, remembered her feelings as she had written. Reading through them again, she found the same person mentioned on almost every page. She relived her change in feelings for that person. On and on she read, until she came to the entry she had made earlier that day. It was the first time she had expressed what she had felt for so long. She had made the wrong turn. She had done what was right but lost what she most wanted. She rolled over to lie on her belly and picked up her pen again.

_I was too young to understand what you wanted to give me._

She put the pen aside, then took it again. She wrote a single line, changing the words she had spoken years ago, the words that had started it all.

Her eyes closed and she fell asleep.

A hand in a grey glove came from behind, pulling her long brown hair away from the diary. A blonde strand of hair fell over a pale face as it bent down to the page. A blue and a green eye read what she had written. Thin lips smiled.

A soft wind browsed through the pages of the diary, turning them.

The room was empty.


	2. Unnerving Discoveries

Sarah woke up because she was cold. She was lying on her bed, her head resting on her diary. It took her several minutes to remember that she had been reading in it. And then she must have fallen asleep. Wiping her eyes to get rid of the sleepy haze still clouding her vision, she sat up. Something in the back of her mind nagged her, something strange she had forgotten and should remember. With a sigh she got out of bed and went into the bathroom to wash her face. Drying her skin with a towel, her eyes fell on her image in the mirror above the sink. She looked horrible! There were dark rings under her eyes as if she hadn't slept in weeks. Her hair was a mess. She picked up her brush and yanked it through the dark hair. Something was wrong, something had happened.

Her brush caught on something. With trembling fingers, Sarah freed a small twig and some leaves from her hair. It was no plant she knew. Or rather, she knew it but didn't know its name. She had seen it before, years ago. Seen it in a forest that was dark and mysterious, home to strange creatures full of mischief, a forest that was not in her world, but in the other.

Dropping the twig into the sink, Sarah ran for the safety of her room. She threw herself onto her bed and pulled the pillow over her head. Sobs shook her body, but she wasn't crying.

Hours later, it seemed, she found her common sense again. It simply was not possible. There was no way she could have been Underground again. How would she have gone there, and why would she be back without remembering anything? She picked up her diary. Putting her thoughts in writing helped her sort them out and come to conclusions. When she opened the little book on the last written page, her eyes fell on the date. That had been weeks ago! She knew she had written more entries since. At least the entry she had written the day before should be here.

But it wasn't. Close to the binding, Sarah discovered the remains of a missing page.

She threw the diary against the wall. Somebody had been in her room! They had taken her diary and read it, and even took out a page! She cursed and instinctively suspected her stepmother or her brother. But they had not been here recently. And they did not have a key to her apartment, they could not have come in without her knowledge. She shivered. Something strange was going on, and she didn't like it at all.

She went back into the bathroom to get the twig and the leaves, still lying in the sink, wet from the drops of water. Sitting back down on her bed, she took her pen and started writing. She wrote everything that had happened since she woke up, every last bit of it, and then put the leaves into the diary. Satisfied, she fell back. She had documentation now, and she could prove to herself that it hadn't been a dream.

She was tired, incredibly tired and exhausted. Her eyes fell shut and she went to sleep again.

Her alarm clock woke her in time to get to university. She left after a quick shower and a small breakfast. She considered looking into her diary again, but that could wait until she was home again. Carefully locking the door behind her, she left.

When she came home in the afternoon she went straight into her bedroom and got out her diary. It fell open on the page after the missing one. But there were no leaves in it. She saw a faint impression of them, mostly covered by writing, but the leaves themselves were gone.

And it wasn't her handwriting! She felt sick. Somebody was reading her journal, and now they were changing it, writing in it. It was as if somebody had ripped off her clothes, had exposed something she didn't mean for anybody to see.

Settling down on her bed, she began to read the stranger's lines.

_Well, if it isn't you. And where are you going?_

_Uh, well, the little lady gave me the slip. But I hears her now and so I was about to lead her back to the beginning, like you told me._

_I see. For one moment I thought you were running to help her. But no, not after my warning. That would be stupid._

_You bet it would! Me? Help her? After your warnings? hahaha!_

_Oh dear, poor Hoghead._

_Hoggle!_

_I've just noticed your lovely jewels are missing._

_Uh, oh, yes, so they are. My lovely jewels, missing. I'd better find them. But first, I'm off to take the lady to the beginning of the Labyrinth._

Sarah looked up. What was that? It was a dialogue, but who spoke? And when, and where? She new who Hoggle was. And that meant the other person must be Jareth, he was the only one Hoggle was this afraid of, as far as she knew. But what was a dialogue between Hoggle and Jareth doing in her diary? Shaking her head, she continued.

_Wait, I've got a much better plan. Give her this._

_Wh-what is it?_

_It's a present._

_Will it hurt her?_

_Now, why the concern?_

_I won't harm her._

_Come, Hogbrain, I'm surprised at you losing your head over a girl._

_I ain't lost my head!_

_You don't think a young girl could ever like a repulsive little scab like you, do you?_

_Well, she said we was..._

_What? Bosom companions? Friends?_

_Ahh, don't matter._

_You'll give her this, Hoggle, or I'll tip you straight into the Bog of Eternal Stench!_

_Yes. Right._

_And Hoggle, if she ever kisses you, I'll turn you into a prince._

_Y-you will?_

_Prince of the land of stench! Hahaha!_

Sarah dropped the book. They were talking about her. This was something that must have happened while she was in the forest, fighting the fireys.

She slid back on her bed until she rested against the wall. Suddenly her room didn't feel safe anymore. Without her even realizing, somebody had seemed to have taken her back to the Underground, back to the time when she had lost Ludo and met the fireys. And that same somebody was now telling her what else had happened at that time.

She frowned. There was something odd about the dialogue she had read, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She pondered the words, to her surprise she found she had memorized most of them after this one reading. She tried to remember what she had seen of Jareth, tried to make the person she knew say the lines she had read.

He sounded so bitter. So hateful. Whenever he had talked to her, it had been with a bit of humour, sarcastic as it might have been. Sometimes he had seemed to flirt with her. But never had he sounded hurt and angered. Yet the Jareth in this dialogue did. She could imagine him looking down on Hoggle, ridiculing him for believing in her friendship. A tear ran down her cheek. If those were his words, he sounded as if he never had known a friend in his life. He was hurt and angered and - jealous?

_If she ever kisses you, I'll turn you into a prince. - Prince of the land of stench._

Why would he seem more willing to hurt Hoggle for letting himself be kissed than for helping her? And indeed, the moment the ground had opened underneath them and almost dropped them both into the Bog had not been the moment he had been helping her to get away from the fireys, nor when he had helped her out of the oubliette. It had been when she kissed him.

She shook her head. This was silly. How could she put so much in just this one dialogue? And she didn't even hear them say it, she only read it. How could she even imagine to fathom the feelings that lay underneath the words. Maybe Jareth was simply an arrogant bastard who deemed himself superior to any emotion, who defied friendship and love, and who ridiculed everybody who disagreed with him.

Resolutely she got up and tucked her diary into its hiding place. Then she left her apartment and resolved to forget about everything connected with the Labyrinth.


End file.
